You know it’s a good Fashion Week when the A-list celebrities start returning to the front rows. Most of them had been scared off from the New York collections long ago by the swarms of paparazzi. Well, them and the advent of blogger-celebrities who started getting more flashbulbs than actual famous people.

But the tide turned on Wednesday, starting with the Michael Kors show, where Freida Pinto, Blake Lively, Naya Rivera, and Michael Douglas came to see the oodles of cozy sweater and fur combinations that Kors had dreamed up for fall (these included tie-dye fur scarves, snakeskin-printed silk dresses and one knockout gray double-breasted coat with all-over floral-and-sparkle embroidery). Even Jeremy Scott, the wild-child designer who is taking over Moschino in Milan this season, had at his show for his signature label an Academy Award nominee, Jared Leto, who made a very late entrance and apologized personally to everyone in the room.

“My apologies,” he said. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. But you all look fabulous.”

That’s OK. Flattery will get you everywhere. Scott’s humorous take on football uniforms, with brightly colored, furry and fuzzy dresses made as numbered jerseys and cable-knit sweaters (an idea recalling the classic American designer Geoffrey Beene’s sequined dresses of 1967, by the way) had Leto seat dancing throughout the show.

The big surprise of the afternoon was Jason Wu’s debut collection for Boss, where it was impressive (and curious, for a women’s wear presentation) that Gerard Butler and Scott Eastwood were there. And then entered Reese Witherspoon in a black leather dress. Next came Gwyneth Paltrow, in a black coat over some kind of white knit sweater dress and black tights. And Diane Kruger and Benedict Cumberbatch were there, too, so clearly Wu had arrived before he had even shown a single look. Fortunately, the clothes were worthy. His take on women’s wear for the classic men’s suit label was sophisticated and gray, much as you would expect, but also full of little surprises – black patent leather loafers; great coats with combinations of gray, camel, and carpet-like panels; and lots of menswear-inspired tailoring.

If you needed a jolt of color after that, look no further than the designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler, whose new suit shapes with ultra-round shoulders and cinched waists came in felted confetti materials, as thick as wall insulation, with flecks of cobalt blue, red and green. Some of the more somber black and white looks resembled composition notebooks – elementary, but chic.